Jeff Abbott - The Last Minute

He typed in the message page:

I have critical information for a CIA officer named August who was in Amsterdam several weeks ago. I offer serious, actionable dirt on the group called Novem Soles. This offer is only good for three days.

He entered in a prepaid cell phone number he’d bought after leaving Ricki’s apartment. He did not sign his name.

He reread the message. If he got too specific August might figure out who he was. This was tantalizing enough, he decided. He would talk to August and only August. August had kept him from being hurt worse; August had argued to leave him in the van, safe from danger.

He pressed Send. He stood, closed the laptop.

‘Mrs ten Boom, we should go.’

‘No. Nic will be here soon, won’t he?’ She was drunk again, a crooked smile back on her face. She’d refilled from one of the whisky bottles. ‘Nic will be here soon.’

Oh, God, Jack thought, he couldn’t leave her. But now that he’d contacted the CIA, he had to move quickly. He couldn’t be anchored with the old drunk woman. But he couldn’t leave her here either, in the horrible place of her son’s worst crimes.

‘Let’s go back to your place, Mrs ten Boom.’

She hit on the whisky bottle again and she lay down on the couch. ‘I want to stay here. Please.’

He stood watching her, and then he said, ‘Goodbye. Thanks for your help.’

She was asleep, holding onto the last shred of her son.

Jack Ming stumbled down the darkened stairs, clutching the most important book in the world to his chest.

NoLita, Manhattan

August Holdwine took the subway to NoLita, the neighborhood North of Little Italy. He walked under the bright morning sky. The safe house sat above a clothing boutique off Mott Street. He went inside and in the kitchen he found his trackers waiting for him. The guy who Sam had manhandled sat at the wooden table, sourly drinking a caffe latte, ignoring Cuban pastries they’d picked up from August’s favorite neighborhood cafe. Instead of eating he pecked on a laptop keyboard.

‘Writing up a report on how you got played last night?’ August asked.

‘A complaint against you for not taking Sam Capra into custody after he attacked me.’

‘Be smarter next time,’ August said. ‘Email that to me and my supervisor, if you must, but why don’t you think about it some more?’

‘You should have grabbed him,’ the tracker said. ‘We got you breakfast, by the way.’

‘Did you spit in it?’

‘Thought about it. Thought you’d make him come back here and talk.’

‘Detention hasn’t much worked with him in the past,’ August said.

‘So, finding this Mila woman, what do we do now?’ the woman tracker asked.

August considered. That thought had kept him awake much of the night. He was charged with finding Mila; but what if, despite Sam’s protestations, this Mila was helping Sam find his son? Was he going to interfere with that? Duty and friendship were often uneasy partners. But duty had to come first.

Didn’t it?

His phone rang. He answered and listened and hung up, then he went upstairs to a makeshift office and locked the doors. Then he called the CIA headquarters back.

We have a phone-in, Langley had told him on his secured phone. Asking specifically for you, to call him at this number. It’s an Amsterdam exchange. Prepaid phone, no record of owner. That only meant the phone had been purchased in Amsterdam; the caller could be anywhere.

It rang. Nine times. Nine. Novem. Did that mean something? Then a male voice came onto the phone. ‘Hello?’

The tracking would begin immediately, August thought. The phone was connected to a laptop, showing on its screen a map of the world. Numbers began to flash across the top as the software traced the caller’s location. ‘Yes. My name is August. I understand you’ve been trying to reach me.’

‘Yes. I have.’ Male, American. No discernible regional accent.

‘About a subject of mutual interest.’

‘Oh, my God, you sound like a bad movie,’ the voice said. Young, August thought, younger than me. ‘Novem Soles. You’re one of the guys looking for them, aren’t you?’ A slight shaking in the voice.

‘Yes.’

‘Well. I can give Novem Soles to you.’

‘How?’

‘I have information for sale.’

‘Information for sale,’ August repeated. He would be repeating much of what the caller said. It was a standard ploy to extend the call, simplify the trace.

‘The price is ten million dollars.’

‘I can’t pay that amount.’

The laptop screen’s map trimmed down where the call was originating from. Europe. Then western Europe.

‘They’ve got their fingers and reach into governments around the world. I think I am giving you a bargain.’

‘Let’s say I agree to the price. What are your terms?’

‘I will deliver the information to you and you will place the funds in a numbered account in the Caymans. I want immunity from prosecution for any crimes I may have committed. Then the CIA gives me a new identity. I want sanctuary where they can never find me, in an English-speaking country.’

August listened carefully. Did he know this voice? Its tone tugged on the frail strings of memory in his mind. ‘I can’t commit that kind of money without seeing what the proof is.’

‘I have the proof.’

‘What is it? Names? Locations? Operations?’

‘It’s a notebook.’

‘A notebook.’

‘Full of details on the people in government and business that Novem Soles owns.’

‘Scan the pages and email it to me.’

The call searcher narrowed. The Netherlands/Belgium/ Luxembourg glowed bright green on the map.

‘And once I’ve done that, then you have the proof, August, and I’m left out in the cold without money or immunity.’

‘What’s in the notebook?’

‘Everything you need to decapitate Novem Soles. They’re not just a criminal ring. They’re worse, a lot worse. It’ll be the best ten million you ever spent.’

‘How did you know my name?’

‘I have the information and I can either sell it to you or I can sell it to any other number of interested buyers.’ Not an answer to the question.

‘Well, I’d have to see the notebook, you understand that.’

‘I am willing to meet.’

‘Where? When?’

‘I’ll call you back. Give me a number.’

‘I’d prefer to call you again.’

‘Oh, no. Not how I play, August. Give me a number or I vanish.’

August fed him his cell phone number. ‘I can’t get you any funds, or any promises, until I know what evidence you have. Until I see it. Tell me your name.’

‘Now knowing my name would be dangerous for you, and since we’re just getting to know each other, and you’re going to get me my beautiful ten million, I don’t want you getting yourself killed. We’re going to enjoy doing business together, August, you’re going to make your career and I’m going to buy my safety and my future. I’ll meet you in New York in two days.’

‘Where and when exactly in New York?’

‘I’ll let you know.’ The line went dead.

August sat and studied the laptop readout. The call had come from Amsterdam. The city where Sam had wrecked the Novem Soles plot.

Novem Soles. In English, the Nine Suns. The name for the criminal syndicate that had been behind the London bombing that had branded Sam Capra a traitor. Their reach was unknown but they had co-opted at least one high government official in the United States and had attempted to deliver a shattering blow to American society. Their ambitions, Sam had claimed, were limitless.

A criminal organization, not terrorist in its ideology, but one that had tried to destroy a CIA office and wreak political havoc in the United States.